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207 points jimhi | 5 comments | | HN request time: 1.245s | source
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jimhi ◴[] No.29827641[source]
In 2018, I got connected to 5 refugees who escaped North Korea to the USA. What surprised me was all 5 were able to escape by different variations of saving up enough money to bribe people along the way.

The only way to save up money for their ages (16-23) was to become "entrepreneurial"

EDIT:

If you are interested in North Korea, check out the stories by some friends of mine:

Charles - North Korean refugee turned programmer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ziqq5gUXu8g

North Korean Spy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9rLqYXTaFI

Girl with parents who worked in the government whose whole family escaped https://www.youtube.com/c/Pyonghattan/videos

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teakettle42 ◴[] No.29828111[source]
This seems universal to authoritarian states where corruption is the only viable strategy to get ahead.

Unfortunately, it also seems to consistently produce an entrenched, corrupt power class that persists long after the regime is overthrown.

See also the former Soviet Bloc.

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1. vkou ◴[] No.29828517[source]
All power structures are authoritarian. Get rid of congress, and you'll simply have your local landholders pay private enforcers to keep the rabble in line. Property rights in theory apply to everyone, but in practice, are consistently enforced in a way that protects large, wealthy property owners more than everyone else.
2. gitgrump ◴[] No.29828846[source]
Erm, no? That's unnecessarily reductionist. "Can compel you to pay taxes" is not the same as "authoritarian". Go ahead, criticize the President online in the United States. Notice how you weren't jailed or executed? Now try something similar in an authoritarian nation.
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3. aspenmayer ◴[] No.29829140[source]
Laws are enforced through use of force or literally denying freedom of movement, or by threatening to do the above to subjects who do not obey.

It’s a spectrum. How violent are the reprisals, how lethal, how indiscriminate. How egregious are the prison terms, how outsized are the fines and fees. But all governments are inherently authoritarian, unless they allow subjects to instead choose punishment by exile instead of strongarm tactics. I’m not aware of any that do. Mostly because there’s nowhere to be exiled to. All governments have claimed all of the available land, so you can’t even choose exile independently. Societies vary on the freedoms they allow; all governmental bodies are by nature authoritarian. If no one were to submit to them, nations would have no standing to declare binding authority over members of the public. Governments are systems of control, and that control is allegedly by consent of the governed. However, if one is never given a reasonable alternative or opportunity to object, they are not free. They are only as free as their society allows them to be. This one-sided state of affairs makes freely-given consent to be governed impossible.

I am open to being convinced otherwise, though. We’re freer than we’ve ever been, but we’ve only changed the window dressing. We’re still beholden to government representatives that themselves have multiple competing interests. Full direct democracy with vote delegation for those who want it is a start. Proportional representation instead of first past the post elections would also be necessary.

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4. pphysch ◴[] No.29831570[source]
Are you aware what the current date is and its significance to dissidents of the current regime in Washington? Hundreds of (primarily non-violent) dissidents prosecuted and incarcerated in the last year alone.

To be clear, I don't agree politically with those dissidents.

5. aspenmayer ◴[] No.29851289{3}[source]
It just occurred to me that the closest we have in USA to self-exile is joining a Native American tribe via marriage, or otherwise being adopted onto a reservation and settling on res.

I’ve done humanitarian work and outreach with various Native American/Indian tribes in western states. My great-uncles both married Native women. No disrespect is intended in any of my above statements. I don’t take these issues lightly, but for the purposes of debate, I included this post to illuminate how hard it is to be freer in a free society that has its warts and issues.